Troy Loney wrote:Well..this is definitely getting blown way out of proportion.

He made a stupid gesture, realized it was stupid and apologized after the game. The caps have a right to express their distaste for what Asham did after knocking the guy out. Asham will probably have to answer to some caps' goon next game, and we'll move on.

sure, I understand the whole mentality; been a part of the glorious game forever.

No doubt the caps will respond faster than any penguins did for Sidney.

shafnutz05 wrote:Yeah, from the way some people are talking here I am wondering if they want Asham tried for war crimes.

I just think that this whole discussion is blurring the lines between what the actual issue is with the situation. Everything was fine except for the stupid gesture. And yes, that was uncalled for....caps' should be fired up about it.

a player on a team that we love with a passion does something gratifying but unsavory - we cheera player on a team that we hate with a passion does the exact same thing - we boo

it's a joke to call that hypocrisy. it's being a fan. maybe some people take it to far, but the sentiment from the level headed people here is that he shouldn't have done it, but it wasn't a big deal, he had a huge adrenaline rush, he didn't know the severity, and he was apologetic afterwards. case closed.

but if ovechkin did the same thing we we'd flip out!! well yeah - he also gets booed every time he touches the puck so we're prone to flipping out on him ad is

ExPatriatePen wrote:Do you folks realize how unusual it is for a guy to apologize so quickly like Asham did? It wasn't 30 minutes later when he called his adrenaline fueled actions "classless".

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a guy issue a mea culpa so quickly like that, and the offense really was relatively minor.

I think that's indicative of how out of place that gesture was. I know that it was just a heat of the moment thing, and he was fired up, i'm certainly not losing respect for Asham or anything like that. Just saying the caps should be pissed.

I guarantee if Asham wouldn't have turned around so fast, he wouldn't have made the gesture. He had no idea how hurt he was.

Of course, Pierre Lebrun and the rest of the indignant turds in the media aren't pointing out that Asham kept a hold of Beagle's jersey after he hit the final punch...gently laying him on the ice. Let's not forget a lot of concussions are caused by the head hitting the ice after a hit like that.

ExPatriatePen wrote:Do you folks realize how unusual it is for a guy to apologize so quickly like Asham did? It wasn't 30 minutes later when he called his adrenaline fueled actions "classless".

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a guy issue a mea culpa so quickly like that, and the offense really was relatively minor.

I think that's indicative of how out of place that gesture was. I know that it was just a heat of the moment thing, and he was fired up, i'm certainly not losing respect for Asham or anything like that. Just saying the caps should be pissed.

Take this comment in the context of me being an unapologetic, unabashed, diehard Pens fan:

I know Asham apologized for what he did, but i have no problem with what he did, the caps have always celebrated a goal or a play like they just won the cup. It also shows that you want to go after our star players, i am going to knock you the pizza out.

I also find it funny that some people in the media are calling Asham's move classless, these are the same people that praised talbot for the"SHHHH" move after the Carcillo fight. If you look at these two example, Talbots was more classless because he had time to think about it before he did it Asham's was in the heat of the moment and was man enough to admit he was wrong afterwards. This is Gilles hovering over tangradi while he was slumped on the ice screaming at a guy.

Asham called his own move classless, so I don't think it's a stretch that someone else would.

If you're going to have fighting, this is what it should be. This served a purpose. I don't know that it's worth seeing someone knocked out and bleeding all over the ice, but at least it's not the staged crap.